Strawberry poison dart frog
Oophaga pumilio
— Where the name comes from
Oophaga is Greek for “egg eater”, from ōión, egg, and phageîn, to eat, from the way it feeds its young; pumilio is Latin, “dwarf”, from its tiny size. The common name comes from the bright red that recalls a ripe strawberry. It is one of the most studied dart frogs for its parental care.
— Facts
- Group
- Amphibians · Amphibia
- Order
- Frogs and toads
- Habitat
- Rainforest leaf litter and understorey
- Range
- Central America, from Nicaragua to Panama
- Size
- 1.7–2.4 cm
- Diet
- Insectivore — ants and mites
- Lifespan
- 5–8 years
— Characteristics
- 01
It has dozens of colour forms from one population to another, from red to blue to green.
- 02
The mother lays unfertilised eggs as the sole food for her own tadpoles.
- 03
The males sing and defend tiny territories in the understorey.
— What sets it apart
The strawberry frog raises her tadpoles with an almost mammalian gesture: having carried them on her back, one by one, into small pockets of water among the leaves, she returns regularly to each to lay an unfertilised egg there, the only food that tadpole will get. Without those nurse eggs the young would die. It is one of the most sophisticated forms of maternal care among amphibians: a mother feeding her offspring from her own body, quite literally, egg after egg.
